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How Shall We Pay for Industrial Accidents? Robert M. La Follette july 17, 1909 What is the human eye worth? Or an arm? Or a leg? These questions are not to be lightly answered. If one were asked to place a money valuation on any part of his body, or on life itself, he would be likely to answer that they are all priceless possessions and that their loss is not to be measured in dollars and cents. It is a fact, however, that such valuations are made constantly. In our great industries , particularly in the most hazardous ones, scarcely a day passes that does not take its heavy toll of maimed or killed workingmen. Sometimes the accident is the result of the man’s own carelessness; sometimes it is due to the negligence of the employer, who thinks it too costly to provide adequate safeguards; sometimes it is unavoidable— and then we say it is inherent in the business. But in every case it has been found necessary to set a price upon the workingman’s body. The amount Wxed varies astonishingly in individual cases. The Pittsburgh Survey recently made an investigation of the actual amounts paid as compensation by employers to twenty-seven workingmen permanently injured in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania . Following is the result: For loss of an eye. . . . . Nothing to $200 For loss of an arm. . . . . Nothing to $300 For loss of two Wngers . . . Nothing to $100 For loss of leg. . . . . . . . Nothing to $225 How do those Wgures impress you? Do you think the amounts given cover the loss? Notice that the largest sum paid in any one case was $300 for the loss of an arm. Observe more particularly that the minimum compensation was nothing! Those injured workmen who were fortunate enough to get any compensation at all received barely enough to pay the doctor’s bill, and, in the case of the most lucky ones, perhaps, to help keep the family from starvation while the wound was healing. But how about the men who received nothing? How were they to keep the wolf from the door until they got well again—at least well enough to Wnd work that a crippled man could do? Perhaps his wife found employment cleaning railroad cars at $1.21 a day; perhaps the oldest boy was big enough to get a job in a factory at $2.50 a week. If so, that family was kept from the limit of human misery. If not—who is there to measure the terrible price that was paid for the accident? Nothing could more vividly illustrate the injustice of the present system of compensating injured workingmen than the Wgures given. They represent the kind of appraisals that are actually placed upon eyes and arms and Wngers and legs. 282 part 14 weaving a safety net The necessity of making such valuations has given rise to an important problem. It is the problem of industrial insurance. You who read this are interested in this problem because at present you help bear the cost of these industrial accidents. The workingman is interested because it is a question of comfort or misery for him and his family, the employer is interested because it means dollars and cents to him; but you also are interested because you are a member of society, and society must care for those who are rendered dependent through injury. Why We Need an Income Tax Senator William E. Borah july 17, 1909 The income tax is the fairest and most equitable of the taxes. It is the one tax which approaches us in the hour of prosperity and departs in the hour of adversity. The farmer, though he may have lost his entire crop, must meet the taxes levied upon his property. The merchant, though on the verge of bankruptcy, must respond to the taxes imposed. The laborer, who goes to the store to buy his food, though it be his last, must buy with whatever extra cost there may be imposed by reason of custom duties. But the income tax is to be met only after you have realized your income. After you have met your expenses, provided for your family, paid for the education of your children for that year, then provided you have an income left, you turn to meet the obligations you owe to the government. For instance, according to amendments recently pending relative to the income tax, a man with an income of $10,000 would...

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